With all that has happened in the financial markets this past few days, and with Lehman Brothers collapsing on the 14th September, the one thing that has remained constant is the Speculator Trader rubbished as a cause of volatility and prices rises in one market or another. The irony now is that with many cautious (some say overly so) players cutting credit lines, liquidity in the traded energy markets has been hit. Volatility in the price and the unpredictable nature of where the banking crisis will go next has caused speculative trade to cease. Without the volume of speculative trade, the energy market will become increasingly unpredictable with wide bid-offer spreads. The only persons trading are the ones that have to regardless of signals and fundamentals. This in turn causes further uncertainty. Bring back the Speculator?